Werner Herzog’s new documentary Ghost Elephants tracks a single obsession: South African naturalist Steve Boyes’s long, often lonely hunt for a near-mythical elephant in the remote reaches of southern Africa. Part field journal, part philosophical probe, the film alternates rugged on-the-ground reportage with reflective passages about ambition, consequence and what a lifetime spent chasing one goal can do to a person.
Herzog spoke about the film over Zoom with producer Ariel Leon Isacovitch, explaining how practical field conditions shaped the film’s form as much as its themes. Harsh terrain and gruelling logistics forced a working method that leans on delegation without diluting Herzog’s authorial vision: specialists in the field capture the raw moments, while Herzog shapes those fragments into a coherent narrative through careful supervision, interviews and his unmistakable narration.
Filmmaking at the edge
Shooting in the Angolan highlands means long hikes, river crossings and days spent following elephant herds—conditions that are physically punishing and unpredictably dangerous. Herzog could not—and did not try to—be everywhere at once. Instead, Isacovitch and a small on-site team followed a tightly planned shot list, stayed in constant contact with Herzog, and sent footage for his daily review. Herzog then issued concise notes, refining the footage’s shape without micromanaging every movement.
That workflow balanced creative oversight with practical necessity. Remote review trimmed Herzog’s time on the hardest shoots while preserving the film’s visual and thematic intent. It also shifted risk to people trained for extreme fieldwork. The process had simple but strict mechanics: a predefined shot list, continuous remote supervision, and iterative editorial feedback. Daily milestones—completing the shot list, reviewing that day’s material, issuing revisions—kept visual continuity intact even when Herzog wasn’t on location.
This model reflects a broader trend: directors operating in extreme environments increasingly depend on trusted deputies to capture high-risk moments, then stitch those moments into a larger artistic statement. Herzog makes clear he accepts his physical limits while retaining responsibility for framing, editing and the film’s central questions. The result feels like a collaboration, but one filtered through his singular sensibility.
Performance, authenticity and the camera’s truth
Ghost Elephants returns often to the slippery line between lived experience and its representation. Herzog’s longtime idea of an “ecstatic truth”—a deeper meaning that transcends mere facts—shapes how he handles scenes that are partly staged, partly real. Some segments, like reconstructed rituals performed by local trackers, are deliberately performative. Yet those enactments carry ritual knowledge and local ways of knowing that conventional wildlife films usually ignore. Herzog frames these moments not to fake reality, but to reveal what they disclose.
Editing is the film’s decisive tool. Voiceover, selective cutting and the placement of interviews all direct what the viewer takes away. Herzog blends raw field footage from local teams, targeted interviews he conducted himself, and careful post-production synthesis to create the film’s argument about truth, pursuit and consequence. Choices about cutaways, reenactment sequencing and where to put explanatory voice are the levers that steer the film’s stance on authenticity.
A striking, unposed image anchors this inquiry: Boyes staring up at an elephant, mouth slack with astonishment. That single frame operates like a hinge in the film—both the culmination of a quest and an invitation to ask whether the attainment of a lifelong pursuit changes the value of the pursuit itself.
Success as burden and blessing
Herzog resists easy closure. The film treats success ambivalently—sometimes liberating, sometimes deflating. Through pacing and editorial emphasis, Ghost Elephants nudges the viewer to linger in that ambiguity. Cinematic depictions of fulfilled quests often recast desire as a kind of loss; here the editing pushes toward the same ambivalent territory rather than triumphant clarity.
Herzog foregrounds unguarded reactions to preserve a sense of authenticity, while staged sequences remind viewers that every documentary is a constructed thing. That tension—between spontaneous wonder and deliberate composition—becomes the film’s central dialectic. When Boyes records what he calls the apparition of a ghost elephant, Herzog’s voiceover reframes achievement as an emotional condition: “He has to live with his success.” It’s a way of saying that accomplishment is not a tidy endpoint but a new state of being, with its own psychological and ethical aftershocks.
Herzog spoke about the film over Zoom with producer Ariel Leon Isacovitch, explaining how practical field conditions shaped the film’s form as much as its themes. Harsh terrain and gruelling logistics forced a working method that leans on delegation without diluting Herzog’s authorial vision: specialists in the field capture the raw moments, while Herzog shapes those fragments into a coherent narrative through careful supervision, interviews and his unmistakable narration.0
Herzog spoke about the film over Zoom with producer Ariel Leon Isacovitch, explaining how practical field conditions shaped the film’s form as much as its themes. Harsh terrain and gruelling logistics forced a working method that leans on delegation without diluting Herzog’s authorial vision: specialists in the field capture the raw moments, while Herzog shapes those fragments into a coherent narrative through careful supervision, interviews and his unmistakable narration.1
Herzog spoke about the film over Zoom with producer Ariel Leon Isacovitch, explaining how practical field conditions shaped the film’s form as much as its themes. Harsh terrain and gruelling logistics forced a working method that leans on delegation without diluting Herzog’s authorial vision: specialists in the field capture the raw moments, while Herzog shapes those fragments into a coherent narrative through careful supervision, interviews and his unmistakable narration.2
Herzog spoke about the film over Zoom with producer Ariel Leon Isacovitch, explaining how practical field conditions shaped the film’s form as much as its themes. Harsh terrain and gruelling logistics forced a working method that leans on delegation without diluting Herzog’s authorial vision: specialists in the field capture the raw moments, while Herzog shapes those fragments into a coherent narrative through careful supervision, interviews and his unmistakable narration.3